Neighbours
by Kylia Skydancer
Summary: Billy's thoughts as he watches Kim with her new crush. Takes place in the first season, leading up to "The Green Candle".


Disclaimer: I don't own them. Saban does.

AN: I don't have a beta at the moment so if I've missed something in my editing or you have any critique please let me know.

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><p>There are things I'll never say to you. Like the way your eyes sparkle when you get excited. Like how, even though I wish you nothing but the best with the new love of your life, secretly deep down I wish you had looked at me that way.<p>

We've been neighbours since I was a small child. You see those houses in tv shows where the kids' windows face each other and you think how amazing that would be. We didn't have that but we had something close. Your father had built you a balcony for your room as a birthday present to make you feel like a princess. I had an enclosed ledge outside my window for my telescope that my father and I had built. Some nights I would look down from my stargazing and see you, humming and brushing your hair, dreams of I-don't-know-what in your eyes.

When my mother died, I took to spending all my time out there on my ledge, even to sleeping out there some nights. My father was so buried in his grief that I didn't feel as if I had the right to intrude with mine. You watched me those first few days in silence, taken aback when I batted away your attempts to be social, to ask me what was wrong. The day after, you didn't attempt to disturb my reverie when you came out. You merely watched me for a while before disappearing inside. Moments later I found you sitting on my ledge. You'd snuck out of your house and into mine, through my bedroom and up the little ladder to my window and my ledge. you still didn't say anything. You just sat with me.

You sat with me for days after, whenever you saw me there and sad. Slowly I started talking to you and finally admitted the sadness I'd been feeling. You're the only person I've ever discussed my mother's death with.

When we started walking to school instead of being dropped off, it was together. Actually, I had started walking first; my father was always a bit scatterbrained and it had been easier to walk than to remind him everyday that he needed to drop me off. Your parents were more protective of you but you complained that I walked everyday so it must be safe and you wanted to as well. They finally gave in by making you promise you wouldn't walk alone. From then on, we had walked to school together. It's strange that it's high school and we still do that. we still walk to school together every day, if we're both at home. These days you have morning practices sometimes and sometimes I'm tutoring in the early mornings but we know each other's schedules and, on the days we both have nothing, we walk. Most days near the end, you'd usually run off with your popular friends when we got near to school but you don't do that much anymore since we became rangers.

Since we became rangers, our circles have shrunk. We still have our groups we do things with, every once in a while, but these days we prefer to spend time with each other. There's less excuses to make when an activity has to be dropped because of a monster attack. And there's this gap between us and everyone else now, of secrets we can never tell.

We've always been very good friends, although we're the last people anyone would expect to be friends. You're part of the popular crowd and I'm a geek. We're not supposed to hang out in the same crowd and yet we always seem to find each other in the same places. You introduced me to my best friend, Trini, and through her I became acquainted with Jason and Zack. It was because of you and Trini that I was at the Youth center that auspicious day. It was my first day in Jason's martial arts class, a class you had convinced me to take, as Trini had convinced you to take before me. It wasn't really my sort of thing but you had all been so nice about it, I felt like i had to give it a fair I was there, in a place I wouldn't have usually been, on the day when Rita first attacked. And as we all helped each other stay standing and safe, we were all transported to the command center as a group.

I'm not really ranger material, I don't think. I can't fight like Jason and I don't have Zack's confidence. I'm just a geek. I could be tech support but I don't belong on the field. But now they're stuck with me, having grabbed me up with the rest of you. We've become a lot closer in our ranger days, maybe to the point where I might tell you what's in my heart all along. But not now.

We've both dated here and there but Tommy is different, I know. None of those others were serious because they could never understand that well of secrets deep inside us. Tommy Oliver, however, is a fellow ranger, like me. Unlike me, he's strong and muscled and every girl's dream. We can all see you're smitten with him. In fact, I think he's the only one who CAN'T see it. We can all see he likes you too; Jason and Zack have been making bets on how soon it will be before you two finally get together.

I watch you two and I know my chance has slipped away. You two may even be meant for each other. If one believed in that sort of thing. I know you'll never look at me as more than a friend now. And I can live with that, if I have to. I only wish I could hate him for taking you away from me, though.


End file.
